There’s a common response I receive from younger moms, after they hear/read my no-nonsense advice about tantrums, attitudes, and arguing.
- “I bet you haven’t actually had a strong-willed child.”
- “I don’t think this will work; maybe my kids are more strong-willed than yours.”
- “You have a lot of kids, but have any of them been strong-willed?”
And I get it.
Sure, I’ve got 9 kids, but maybe they’re all innately angelic, right?
I assure you they’re not.
No, we’ve had some head-scratching, hair-raising, eye-popping moments with fiercely, stubbornly, strong-willed kiddos in our almost-18 years of parenting.
And I am still in the thick of raising them! My time with aggressive, self-sure younguns is not by any means done.
So sometimes, in response, I tell stories about some of the toe-to-toe, eyeball-to-eyeball battles I’ve experienced with our children.
- the one who was physically violent to the point of needing to be restrained in our arms, when he was 4-5 years old.
- the one who still debates the tar out of me even though he knows he knows he knows he knows we won’t give in (but he’s convinced he’s right).
- the one who mercilessly criticizes me every time I make a different decision with a younger sibling than I did with him,
- the one who corrects everyone else in the house and absolutely does not see how he is wrong, even when he clearly is,
- the dozens of times a day I’ve had to stick with disciplinary tactics, for months or years, with most of my children… and how that is normal.
And how yes… I do have this one child who seems to have a naturally compliant nature, but he is the far-outlier of my brood.
Sometimes I even make a crack about my own rotten stubbornness and how crabapples don’t fall far from trees.
But then…
after that,
I share the most helpful thought I know about strong-willed kids.
Because it’s the one every mom with strong-willed kids actually needs to take to heart. It’s one that many parents get wrong.
It’s a game-changing perspective that can help us go the distance when we’re in those battles where it feels like we can’t win and might as well just give in.
Are you ready for it?
(Lean in, cause I’m whispering, for effect.)
Strong-willed kids are actually weak-willed kids.
The kid who can master himself {his emotions, physical body, hormones, feelings, internal inclinations, intellectual abilities, surge of adrenaline, head knowledge, and words} in order to achieve or do something according to his larger values/what he knows to be right–
THAT kid has a strong will.
But the kid who rages and insists and claws and fights and pushes and criticizes and whines and manipulates and bullies and complains and digs in his heels, because of what is happening inside, feeling that he must go along with his own immediate urges,
that kid has a weak will.
Very very often- almost every time I hear the word used— when someone says their child has an incredibly “strong” will, what they actually mean is that the child has an incredibly weak will.
Their child is a slave– in bondage– to his own will/desires.
When a person:
- can only see things his/her own way, or
- can only stand for things to go the way he/she wants,
- or else they blow up/argue/complain/dig in their heels/scream/fight/whine/accuse/criticize– somehow making everyone else “pay”
…that’s a weak will.
The child who never learns how to master himself will grow up to be a person in perpetual bondage.
They have weak (not strong!) will because they can not even master themselves; they perpetually give in to their own whims and short-term inclinations.
When a kid can master his/her self, subduing his own flesh in the pursuit of greater things, that is a person with a strong will. The will of that person is robust!
Weak-willed (previously termed “strong-willed”) kids need parents who:
- refuse to let them remain in bondage to their own weakness.
- are willing to exercise wise restraint/discipline from the outside until the child is strong enough to exercise wise restraint/discipline from the inside
- Or at least, they need parents who consistently point out to them when they are being taken hostage by their weaknesses. (This is where we land as our kids get older and older, as they display a weak-willed giving in to their flesh.)
They need parents who see their strong displays of argumentative stubbornness for what it actually is:
a weak will.
Their weak will will be a detriment to them unless they learn to master themselves.
The classically-termed “strong willed child” is a weak-willed child who needs strong parents to guard and guide him until his character grows to the degree that he stops weakly giving in to his own desires, passions, and furies.
The weak-willed child needs strong parents to stand for him and kneel in prayer for him until he grows an actually-strong will.
IN THE COMMENTS: Talk to me. Does this reflect what you see in your own family or the families around you?
If you have a child you’ve thought of as “strong-willed,” does this flipping of the words help you see the situation more clearly?
Jess, this is gold! Thank you for helping us to see things from a more Biblical perspective. I have never really thought of it this way before. This will definitely help us change the way we parent our children (even though they’re often compliant children).
I almost cried! This is my struggle, every day.
My eldest son even went to the extent that he used to smudge poop everywhere.
Took a lot of patience to correct that.
Talk back is another attitude we are fighting now.
I guess the most important thing is that whether your partner is supportive or not. The son creates so much drama that my partner gives in. That makes everything even harder.
That is wisdom!! I never thought of it that way but it is absolutely true!
I find this the truth with my 17yr old son who had always been full on! God has provided further guidance recently to me about not making up for his disorganisation since I am so organised. Lately I am guiding him through natural consequence and expectations to be ‘organised’ and to take responsibility when he isn’t. It’s challenging and draining but soooo worth it long term (even short term).
It is true of me too. I was a strong willed child. I have loved your advice as a mother to help my own temper etc as an adult.
God bless. Xx from Australia!
I have a son who was very intense as a child. Everything he did was extreme. I spent most of his childhood telling him “I am able and willing to control you. But that will only benefit you short term. You will do much better if you earn the freedom to control yourself.” Example: Freaking out over a blood test, the medical staff came with four people to hold him down. I told him that for his own safety he would have to be held down in order to avoid injury. I gave him the choice to either let them hold him down or hold himself down. After a long time, he decided he would rather hold himself down than let these strangers do it.
YES! Great example with the blood test. I think many are willing to “impose” their will for things like a necessary medical procedure or running in the street, but less-so for everyday things.
The truth is, it’s the everyday things that form our kids’ character, much more so than the one-off events of their lives.
This absolutely resonates with me. Do you have any specific advice on how to deal with the child who wants to correct everyone else and never sees their own faults? That has been my biggest struggle to date by far.
Well it depends on the age of the child. As they get older, I use mini-lectures much more in situations like this. Basically, instructing them with truth in order that they might see the world rightly. So, informing them (and hopefully helping to shape their conscience) about what is actually happening.
For example,
“He took out the trash this morning, and has been working on an oil change all afternoon, so you’re wrong that he’s done nothing today compared to you. I’d like for you to stop correcting others, and just focus on what God’s given you to do.”
——-
Or, “You’re not the person in charge of her. Who has God placed in charge of her?”
(Hopefully he answers mom/dad.)
“That’s right. Darlin, you’re operating as if you are always the one in the right, AND as if you see properly, and that is not the case. Not only that, but you’re not even in charge of her. Who is the one person you can do something about?”
(“Myself”)
“That’s right, and do you do a perfect job just being in charge of you?”
(“no”)
Then depending on their responses and posture, I may or may not continue down that line of thinking. If they still seem proud and stubborn, I might use recent missteps in recent memory to help them see themselves rightly.
If they’re starting to be more reasonable/self-aware, I might just ask them to do something small that needs doing and move on with life together.
The upside of having a very determined, forceful child is that when they do choose to do right you know that they mean it. A very compliant child is harder for me to figure out because obedience is often the easy path when children are young, but then these kids can be so easily swayed by friends later on. So far I haven’t had any particularly compliant children though. 😆 I was a classic “strong-willed” child and I experienced very little peer pressure as a teen and have always been ok with doing what I think is right regardless of other people’s opinions. Some of my more eager to please siblings had more turbulent teen and young adult years. I think that determination can be separated from being emotion-driven. It takes discipline, patience, and grace, but determination and a strong will properly aimed is a good thing to have.